Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Steffy's Garage from "Great Old Pic's"

This photo from the Great Old Pic's post is intriquing.
Question was asked about the 3 brands of gas.
Some old photos show that independent businesses in small towns sold more that one brand. Customer Satifaction no doubt to increase business.

But, I have to wonder what is Not pictured?
If you look at the building. You see pipes with a T on top. Those are vent pipes for underground storage tanks.
I can see at least 9 of those.
Besides maybe Kerosene, I wonder what else he was selling?
There were probably a lot more pumps than what this photo shows.

Chuck

I noticed that too Gaspedler.Was there one T-pipe for every underground tank? Also were are the pipes for filling those same tanks? If I was that kid in suspenders ,I'd have those Willard & Pepsi signs on my bed room wall!! Lol. Dave

Chuck:
In my early tanker yanker days most of tha stations I delivered were a series of 3000 or 4000 gallon tanks. One station with just regular & premium had 6 tanks, 4 X 4000 for regular & 2 X 4000 for premium. We had another station that had a loading rack hooked to the same tanks as the station that had 8 underground tanks.
If the tank wagon driver loaded a bunch of regular or premium he could break the siphon & leave the station not able to pump gas because they both pulled from the same tank and the product had to siphon from the others.
Another station I didn't deliver had a bunch small 1000 tanks that weren't hooked to siphon and owner took a little transfer pump to move the product around.
That might be the answer ?

Dave

Yeah i was going to say sort of the same thing - Most likely answer is that he had very small tanks to start with and added on 1-2 tanks each giving him 12 or more as he grew or the old ones got abandoned. back then there was no EPA coming out to your place to be sure you yanked the old leaking tanks..

If you look to the fuzzy left edge you'll see theres more vents there it looks like..

Also I believe they may have had waste oil tanks for when they were servicing your car.They were also vented. You know Those days when you could have your car serviced and get gas from the same place. What a concept. Love the way globes are turned so you could see what brand as you drove up. Wonder why they didn't make a four sided globe.. Love the pict.

Gene

Ummm, that would be a cube.

Don't some of the pump tops have ad glass all the way around?* So maybe then did have the cube, just not in the form you were thinking...

Yes, there would have been a different vent pipe for each tank.

Fills most likely are located below ground or off to the side of the station out of view.

And the guys are right, most likely there were multiple tanks for the same product. Underground composit would have dictated the size in some areas. In areas with a solid stone formation, smaller tanks in more numberous numbers were used.

This proved to be a problem in later years. The pits to set tanks in stone formations were drilled and blasted with dynomite. If larger tanks or additional tanks were desired later on. Only small enlargements could be made. Because of the risk of a tank leaking and the gas running out into formation, there was a risk of explosion. That explosion could happen over a half mile from the station if the product had run into a pool there.

Having the vent pipes in two areas would be indicative of an addition of more tanks at a later time. Maybe to accomdate the additions of additional brands of gas.

Maybe I can help?




I have a copy of the photo:






As Paul Harvey used to say "And now for the rest of the story":
















I think everyone likes photos of these type stations, the ones that carried multiple Brands... So here is another that might catch your fancy?

Bob, those are great pictures! Thanks for sharing them with us.

Talk about a monopoly...gas price fixing. Not many gas price wars in that town.

I knew there had to be more to that photo than what meets the eye.

Thanks Bob.

Looks as if all the gas pump collectors need to turn the globes on top a 1/4 turn to be period correct LOL.

Those are great pics. Thanks, Bob

Globes are correct for a customer entering drive to see which pump they want fuel from.

For a picture of a four sided globe see page 348 of my Gas Pump Id book.

Jack Sim